East Prussian Offensive

The East Prussian Offensive (13 January-25 April 1945) was a Soviet offensive operation that was executed in the last months of World War II. The Soviets succeeded in taking East Prussia from the Germans, taking the fortress of Koenigsberg in the process, albeit not without heavy losses.

At the beginning of January 1945, Konstantin Rokoissovsky's 2nd Byelorussian Front was located on the right flank of Georgy Zhukov's 1st Byelorussian Front, and Rokossovsky was ordered to protect Zukov's flank during the Vistula-Oder Offensive. Rokossovsky's drive was met with much tougher resistance than Zhukov's, depriving Zhukov of effective flank protection and worrying the Stavka high command. However, German forces had been pinned back into a few pockets of resistance on the Bay of Danzig by February 1945, cutting off East Prussia from the rest of the Reich. The Red Army advance sent a tide of refugees fleeing west and towards the Baltic coast, ending 800 years of German resettlement in the region, and tens of thousands of refugees were trapped in the city of Memel, Hitler's last peaceful conquest. The 1st Baltic Front laid siege to Memel, and the refugees were terrified of falling into Soviet hands, as the Red Army was determined to wreak its barbarous revenge against the Germans. The Red Army acted with great savagery during its advance, torturing and killing villagers and shelling and bombing refugees. 90 miles to the south of Memel, the Red Army also cut off the fortified city of Koenigsberg, and Aleksandr Vasilevsky oversaw the bombing of the city by 870 fighters, 470 atttack aircraft, 1,124 bombers before sending in the infantry. General Otto Lasch surrendered on 10 April 1945, two days after the German forces on the Samland Peninsula were cut off from the city. Red Army troops took their revenge against the residents of Koenigsberg amid scenes of almost medieval barbarity. The offensive came to an end with the capture of Koenigsberg, which would be renamed Kaliningrad after the war; East Prussia was ceded to the Russian SFSR, and it remained a part of Russia even after the Dissolution of the Soviet Union.